DIRECT v3.0 - Thread 5 - Transition from STS to the new Space Launch System

[FinalFrontier]

Yes, because it was beyond 2014 I was talking about. If NASA can't ever execute a project close to budget or schedule, and this project has a lot of margin by Direct reckoning, then there is no hope, and we should all just give up.

Those who plan to fail... plan to fail. 

Ok, I didn't understand that in your original post.  I'm not planning to fail, but I'm definitely not optimistic.  I don't expect that NASA will select DIRECT, although the final product may bear similarities.  I hope I'm wrong and some of NASA management can wake up to reality. 

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

[Rick R28]

I agree. If NASA follows the same path, they will badly fail again due to future budget cuts. In these tough economic times, it makes sense to follow a plan (like DIRECT) with a tight budget.

[MickQ]

Just letting everyone know, we are putting out an important formal Press Release today, something we've only ever done twice before.

There is a copy in the News section of this forum, and also on our website:   www.directlauncher.com

Ross.

Lets hope common sense prevails for once.

OOPS, did I say that?

Mick.

[Proponent]

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

No NASA launch-vehicle effort since Saturn has turned out the way it was supposed to, and all but one (Shuttle) were canceled.  NASA still exists.  This pattern may well kill NASA eventually, but why would you expect things to be any different this time around?

[kkattula]

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

No NASA launch-vehicle effort since Saturn has turned out the way it was supposed to, and all but one (Shuttle) were canceled.  NASA still exists.  This pattern may well kill NASA eventually, but why would you expect things to be any different this time around?

Because NASA have sunk so low that internet fan-boys and the US Senate are designing their rockets for them?   That should be a wake up call.

Edit: And the President tried to take their toys away.

[aquanaut99]

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

Bureaucracy does not work quite like that. The worst thing you can do is to come in under budget. Because that is an open door for the politicians to cut your future budget saying "you didn't need that money anyway".

You always try to come in over budget. That way, you can go to the politicians and whine you don't have enough money...

[HIP2BSQRE]

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

Bureaucracy does not work quite like that. The worst thing you can do is to come in under budget. Because that is an open door for the politicians to cut your future budget saying "you didn't need that money anyway".

You always try to come in over budget. That way, you can go to the politicians and whine you don't have enough money...

Come in over budget and time too many times and they will find someone else to do the job. :-(

[HappyMartian]

Because NASA have sunk so low that internet fan-boys and the US Senate are designing their rockets for them?   That should be a wake up call.

Edit: And the President tried to take their toys away.

And because all the good Internet folks are going to help keep the politicians from using NASA for limited local political goals. NASA can design great launchers and missions if they don't have to deal with political nonsense.

Give NASA a clear goal: Build a J-130 ASAP. Everyone will closely monitor NASA's progress, because that is the way the world is today, but everyone should also try to stay out of the agency's way. NASA can and should listen carefully to suggestions, but only they will be responsible for their product.

I am confident that NASA can and will produce an HLV that will serve our country and planet very well for many decades.

Cheers!

 

[Nathan]

not good if living on the surface at the time. Need propellant depots to fuel spacecraft that aren't designed to fall apart.

That's why the drop tanks would contain enough propellant to do de-orbit, with still more delta-v needed to be expended to complete the de-orbit and land. The drop tanks would overshoot the landing site by a very long way, perhaps a couple of hundred miles.

If dropping into a base of some sort, whether permanent or only a semi-permanent staging area, the "drop zone" for the expendable tanks could serve as a tank collection area to be used as a future material source.

An architecture that generates garbage is not sustainable. Need reusability from outset of all assets otherwise we won't ever have a commercial space reality.

[Lars_J]

An architecture that generates garbage is not sustainable. Need reusability from outset of all assets otherwise we won't ever have a commercial space reality.

That's a silly statement to make. Just look at us here on Earth. *If* using expendable resources is cheaper than reusable resources, then the expendable architecture will be more sustainable.

[kraisee]

Forgive me for bringing people back down to Earth with a hard bump, but we won't have any "commercial space reality" until commercial entities are paying for the Program.   Right now, their contribution to this market is less than 1%.

Space Access is still effectively a completely Government Subsidized operation -- and will remain so -- until ways to make money from space are identified and the Program is then funded by the corporations of the world.


When you get right down to it -- and I hate to say it in quite such "shocking" terms -- but everyone, from Space-X, to Orbital Sciences, Boeing, Lockheed Maryin, ATK, PWR and all the other companies in this business, all suck on exactly the same government teet.

I know its flavor of the month to throw the word "commercial" around, but the real truth is that all of those companies are just as commercial as one another.   But the Program which they support is NOT commercial -- because there are no Billions available from the commercial sector to pay for their own Program.

Until that paradigm changes, this business is not going to be truly "commercial" at all.

Ross.

[moose103]

I think they have a specific definition of what commercial means in the rocket context. 

It is very misleading to imply that Shuttle and ULA Atlas V and SpaceX Falcon 9 are all commercial rockets bought by NASA, when important things like rocket design, test, construction, ownership, and operation are done differently for each rocket...

They all suck the same teat, but they do it differently, so... that is what the "commercial" thing is getting at...

[Mr. Justice]

Altair was never all that impressive; it really needs to be cancelled. We really should replace it with a reusable LSAM stationed at an L1 fuel depot. Not only will this save cost in lander production but it will also further reduce cost by reducing the number of launches. A Moon mission can then be launched on a single J-130.

The L1 fuel depot puts us in prime position for NEO missions. A single J-246 should be able to launch such a mission. A downsized disposable version of the LSAM, given NEO's minimal gravity, would be built. A mission module would also be launched. The lander and mission module would be docked aft - transposition and docking would occur, after the ejection burn. To save weight Orion's upgraded SM would launch only partially fueled, it would then be fully fueled at the fuel depot.

[JohnF]

 Commercial, supposedly private, but wants taxpayer money, the excuse thats the way its always been still doesn't make it right, if they're private, they should use their own money.

[Jim]

Commercial is not defined by where the money comes from nor by what portion.  It is defined by the contracting method.

Example of a commercial procurement:

Govt, we need x number of 5 passenger cars


Example of  non commercial procurement:

Govt, we need x number of 3 liter engines

we need 4x number of wheels

we need x number of chassis

etc

Govt, we need somebody to take the above components and assemble into a car

[JohnF]

Our misguided so called president shouldn't be trying to throw billions of taxpayer money at them.

[JohnFornaro]

This gets so confusing sometimes.  It's not-DIRECT.  It's not-Shuttle-C.  It's not-Ares.  It's not-gonna-happen.  What is it?

...the "drop zone" for the expendable tanks could serve as a tank collection area to be used as a future material source.

Absolutely.  In addition, I keep thinking that there's a benefit in collecting the ISS trash, which has already been lifted once to LEO, and putting it in a "dumpster", which is then lifted the rest of the way to the outpost.  This trash is rich in carbon, which is in short supply on the Moon, plus it has already been lifted to LEO, plus it needs the dumbest possible container for TLI.

It has to be a controlled landing, as Ben mentions, although as long as the container is not ruptured, I don't think it matters so much how rough the landing is.  Naturally, it needs to be sufficiently accurate as well.

When the infrastructure is there to digest and remanufacture this stuff, there would be quite the junk pile.  True, in principle, that "an architecture that generates garbage is not sustainable", but re-usability, say, on the scale of the automobile, would be very expensive.  I don't know all the ins and outs of this, but for one thing, the auto engine is run at a fraction of it's theoretical capabilities, and a rocket engine is run at about the limits of it's theoretical capabilities.  It will be quite some time before there is a rocket engine which can be started and stopped, say, 365 times a year for about ten years.

The philosophical mindset, from an earlier time, is: "waste not, want not".  Our government, basically reflecting the desires of the population, does not follow this particular mindset.  Just sayin'.

I find myself in total agreement with this statement:

Space Access is still effectively a completely Government Subsidized operation -- and will remain so -- until ways to make money from space are identified and the Program is then funded by the corporations of the world.

People around here say that our government should not create a market, but they forget that our government is proposing to create a fictional market out of whole cloth: the cap and trade scheme.  There is a proper place for our government to create a market, and space exploration is exactly this place.  The mining and manufacturing of mineral resources is probably the fundamental wealth creation of space, and this should be encouraged by the government.  In addition, space tourism might be the source of early capital funding.  Just as the lottery can be mis-characterized as a tax on the poor, space tourism could be mis-characterized as a tax on the uber rich, at least at first.  It sure seems to me that the space tourists so far are proud of their ability to pay and support our HSF efforts.

When the time comes that private space investment is not dependent on the government, the need to repeal OST will be seen as of paramount importance.  Today, the difficulties of commercializing space are seen as more of an obstacle, snd this is waved away as a worthless treaty.

What's the first thing they're gonna wanna import from space?  Moon rox?  Nahhh.  BTDT.

Come in over budget and time too many times and they will find someone else to do the job who can come in even higher and later.

Oooops. Sorry.

[SpacexULA]

Our misguided so called president shouldn't be trying to throw billions of taxpayer money at them.

Because those billions should be thrown to someone else?

Money will be thrown, this debate is about how many different people get to put on a mitt, and what type of ball will be thrown.

So should Boeing and Lockheed Martin via United Space Alliance get the money, or should Boeing and Lockheed Martin via United Launch Alliance get the money?  Or should a bunch of ex Boeing and Lockeheed Martin staff at Orbial and SpaceX get the money?

I know it's an oversimplification, but it is fun to look at it that way.

[JohnF]

Some money will be thrown at commercial no doubt, I personally think it would be better spent thrown to Lock Mart, ULA etc. rather than a Space X type, which doesn't yet know what they don't know. and that's all I have to say about that.

[FinalFrontier]

Nasa will do as its told from now on or it will cease to exist. It nearly did this time around. There won't be a second chance. They ethier stay in budget and on time or they go away: Its that simple.

No NASA launch-vehicle effort since Saturn has turned out the way it was supposed to, and all but one (Shuttle) were canceled.  NASA still exists.  This pattern may well kill NASA eventually, but why would you expect things to be any different this time around?

Because we are in a recession, perhaps even a depression. And the bottom line is, its probably not going to get much better than it is. The economy is simply smaller.

Point being that voters are no longer going to tolerate government waste, be it from a democrat or a republican.


Additionally, Congress as it is now is fed up as well. With commercial on the rise there is no excuse for another failure on Nasa's part. Ethier they do it right or they dont, but if they fail this time they are finished.